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RAWR! 'Family of monsters' nail art!

This was kind of celebratory nail art - I had my speech today and I didn't die! Or faint, or vomit, or anything else nasty like that. So yay. I decided I deserved a few hours without my most hated thing (study) and with my two favourite things (Chris & nail stuff). And wow, I needed hours. I Think this took somewhere between 2 1/2- 3 hours. I'm happy with the results, although the brown's a little dark!

Aren't they cute? I mean, terrifyingly scary. As I said in the title, they're a family. I doodled the idea for them in my book during uni today. From left to right, there's Dad, Mum, Teenage brother (just because I drew him a bit big to be a kid!), little brother and you'll see little sister in a few photos time.

But before I continue... LOOK WHAT I GOT! Four beautiful new OPI nail polishes! Swatches will be up in the next week or so. I'm stoked, because OPI nail polish from Farmers is $26.90 or something ridiculous like that. But I got the four of these for $30, including postage off trademe (our ebay)!! The best part was that they posted them amazingly quickly; I bought them yesterday and they arrived at 9am this morning. Happy, happy customer right here!

I actually did a tutorial for these - so keep reading!

I used this as the base colour. I usually don't really like CR because it gets gluggy VERY quickly, which drives me up the wall. However, this thickness does mean they're good for stamping. They also have some really sweet colours. Check out this gorgeous apple green. It's number 119 by CR, if you want to go get it - and only $2 too. I'll add this to my swatches page soon too. The problem I have now that I've fancied my swatches page up is that it takes a lot longer to organise each picture! Oh well...

Right, I'll stop yabbering on and do this tutorial. Next I painted a streak of 'Suzi Loves Cowboys' by OPI through the middle of my fingers - not the thumb. These are going to be the bodies.

On my thumb I painted a few coats of 'Play the Peonies' by OPI. This is the blanket for the baby monster.

Next, with a very small brush I added on lots of small lines around the outside for fur. I had to do this twice actually, to make it more opaque (my favourite word!). It wasn't as painful as it looks though, I enjoyed this part, as it's quite a transformation.

Next I grabbed my Jordana stiper polish and oh-so-carefully drew on the mouths. There's a bit of variation there!

Next, a couple of dabs of red nail polish made the tongues... which barely show up in the finished product, to be honest.

Then I did the teeth. From here on it got a lot harder, as the details are so precise and tiny. And I hate restarting, so I went slow to get it right. I used my $2 shop M Eizilan dotting/striping tool, which proved very useful. I don't think I could have done this mani without it. I screwed up a little bit on a couple of nails so I used the brown to fix that up.

Eyes - again with M Eizilan.

And the rest of the details were too minor to take individual photos of, so here's the finished product. I used a brush with a tiny dotting tool end for the blacks of the eyes, and a small striper brush for the darker green bits in the background. I painted on the bows with a couple of Nail Art polishes my Aunty got me from who knows where, and the eyebrows were done with my Jordana striper polish. Ummmm is that it? Oh yea, I mixed a bit of 'Suzi loves cowboys' and 'You don't know Jacques!' and painted on more fur, but it's pretty subtle. And I mixed some 'Play the Peonies' with another pink to make the fold of the blanket on baby monster.

Right, think that's it! Jeez, another long post. Here are some photos of both my hands, so I can prove that I do paint both of my hands like this!

I used to be pretty shocking at painting my left hand - and nails in general, but after so much practice it's much easier!

For example, look at this - one of my first nail art attempts. Just look at those cuticles! And lighting! And uneven dots! Argh! And this was only four months ago!

Anyway, that's just my little reflection moment.

Hope you like my little monsters! I just remembered, I was singing a lot to a song before and it said something like 'la la la.' I happened to look at my nails at the same time and accidentally sung 'rawr rawr rawr!'. Too much nail polish fumes, perhaps?

Oh, and don't forget to add your blog links in my "Share your blog here" tab! NOT in the comments though please!

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Nailed It NZ is now an archived collection of thousands of nail art designs, ranging from simple dots to intricate artworks. Started in 2012 and concluded in September 2017, Nailed It NZ designs and tutorials are still available on multiple platforms to inspire and teach.

Nailed It NZ at it's peak reached hundreds of thousands of people per month, with thousands of related products sold - now in busy hands all over the world.

Thank you for allowing me to share my creativity with you for all these years - it's been the adventure of a lifetime.